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Social media with WaPo

By Alex Hager

For my second session of the day, I went to a talk on the role of social media in journalism from Washington Post social staffers T.J. Ortenzi and Tauhid Chappel.

In all honesty, I was pretty disappointed. The two presenters were completely candid about having not prepared for the talk, and delivered an underwhelming four-slide powerpoint about the various social media roles at WaPo. They fielded questions, and didn’t seem particularly engaging in most of their answers.

Describing their jobs, they did reaffirm my interest in pursuing social media as a supplement to my journalism career. Although I have no interest in forfeiting my pursuit of reporting, there is absolutely a role for social media as a way to enhance my storytelling and share the stories i produce.

The way I see it, it’s not long before media publishers begin to reduce the amount of “social media editors/strategists” on their payroll, as more and more journalists and content creators will be expected to have a thorough understanding of social media in addition to their existing skill sets.